Despite a worthy push from the city, the Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal made by New York to mandate fuel emission standards on the city’s cabs. According to Mayor Bloomberg’s plan, taxi owners who did not use fuel-efficient cars would have been penalized. In 2007, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade brought the original suit against the proposal, when the city first attempted to mandate that all taxi-cabs get at least 30 miles a gallon by 2009. The city then announced a decision to replace all 13,000 taxi cabs in the city with hybrids by 2012. Unfortunately, both the proposals were struck down by lower courts because only federal agencies are currently allowed to regulate fuel economy and emission standards.

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2 Comments

thesupervillainMarch 1, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Congress should act on this - even the Tea Party might be on board because of state's rights!

ZeppflyerMarch 1, 2011 at 2:24 pm

I'm conflicted.
On the one hand, I am all for municipalities being allowed to regulate such matters and taxi cabs are a great place to introduce and experiment with all sorts of fuel saving technologies.
On the other hand, the Crown Vic is the best car ever built and can never be topped.